The Adventure Games

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Doctor Who: The Adventure Games was a series of five video games that tied in with the first two years of the Matt Smith era on television. They were the first video games to feature the voice of the actors playing the then-current televised Doctor and companions.

They were delivered primarily by download from the main BBC Doctor Who website and were mainly intended for the personal computer platform. The earliest versions of the games ran on Windows and Macintosh operating systems, but they later became available to other platforms. Though primarily for UK customers — since the games had in part been funded by the BBC license fee — the games were eventually made available internationally.

Details regarding the games were announced on 21 April 2010. The games were made in conjunction with the Doctor Who TV production team, with Matt Smith and Karen Gillan lending their voices and likenesses to the games. In announcing the games, series producer Piers Wenger stated "There aren't 13 episodes of Doctor Who this year. There are 17 — four of which are interactive. Everything you see and experience within the game is part of the Doctor Who universe."[1] A trailer for the series was released.

Footage of the games was shown after Victory of the Daleks. It revealed one "episode" would involve the Daleks and a destroyed London in 1963 with the tagline Fight The Daleks. This was later released as City of the Daleks by Phil Ford, initially announced as being available on the 5th of June, 2010.[2].
A second series of another four episodes was commissioned for release in 2011[3], but only the first episode of Series 2 was released before further production on the Adventure Games was cancelled.

The first of the games, City of the Daleks, was released for download via the BBC's official Doctor Who website on 2 June 2010 for PCs — several days earlier than the originally announced release date of 5th June. It was later revealed that the early release of the game was part of a system test as they geared up for the official release date. A trailer for the game was shown after Vincent and the Doctor on Saturday to mark its official launch
[4]. A Macintosh version was later released on 15th June 2010.[5]

At present, the first four games are available to international audiences from Direct2Drive, for $3.70 American. However, Direct2Drive has controversially chosen not to make the Mac OS version of the game available. As a result, some gaming sites have not reviewed the game.[6]

Robert Nashak from BBC Worldwide has said that in the future there may be retail versions of the games.[7]

As of October 2015, they are unavailable from the BBC Website, though can still be purchased from Steam.

The Adventure Games are puzzle-based games. The player must navigate obstacles with a specific pattern to them, crack codes, use objects to bypass obstacles and navigate mazes. There is little margin for error; most hazards kill automatically and (as the Eleventh Doctor) it can be hard to escape from enemies once they've spotted you. The game follows a linear path: tasks have to be handled a certain way and in a certain sequence.

Playable characters in all the games are the Eleventh Doctor and Amy Pond and in the second series, Rory Williams. However, the player can not choose which character to play with, as this is tied to in-game story progression. The only exception is at the end of TARDIS.

Each episode of Series One of the Adventure Games has collectible cards, marked with a "DW" logo, which provide extra information on the Doctor Who universe. There are fifty to collect in total over the four games, ten each of Doctors, Companions, Friends, Enemies and Jelly Babies.

There are also "Who Fact" popups which can be found throughout the games giving more info on the characters and objects encountered, but they are not counted toward a collectible total in Series 1.

In Series 2's single episode The Gunpowder Plot the collectibles are 41 various facts about Jacobean Life, revealed by examining relevant objects in-game. Additionally, the "Who Fact" popups discovered by the player now count toward a goal of 20 collectible items of Who trivia; these can all be found in the Doctor's Drawing Room.

Series 2 of the Adventure games was announced in 2010.[9][10] The first and only game in the series was The Gunpowder Plot.[11] The second series of the Adventure Games was cancelled in February 2012[12] following a muted fan reaction to The Gunpowder Plot.